I recently attended the National League of Cities conference. This annual event, attended by representatives from thousands of cities, provides local leaders with resources, contacts and continuing education. The League is focused on helping cities build stronger communities. Advocacy, job creation, economic growth, effective policy making, and feasible collaboration are only a few of the topics we explored for continuing and creating sustainable, vibrant communities.

Could millions of college dropouts get a second chance through a GED-style equivalent of a college diploma? In today's age of blue-collar blues and online education, the idea of college-equivalency exams doesn't sound so outlandish anymore.

Americans praise civility, but we constantly reward rudeness. That annoying fact of life helps to explain why the blessings that Rush Limbaugh brought to the Republican base recently turned into a curse.

This coming Saturday, publisher Mike Mischner, Localife/West Wateree Chronicle Editor Keri Todd Boyce and I (and our families) will attend the S.C. Press Association's (SCPA) winter meeting. If we're very lucky, we might pick up a few awards. At the very least, we'll enjoy a lovely meal, a very nice hotel and one of the better beaches on South Carolina's coast.

Some might call Rush Limbaugh the "slut" after his mediocre apology to keep advertisers in bed with him after the Sandra Fluke debacle. Eight of his sponsors have walked out the door unsatisfied with the conservative talk show host's remarks.

Speak no ill of the dead. So goes a saying from ancient Greece. I must beg for an exception in the case of the late Andrew Breitbart. Like Donald Trump, Breitbart had his sweet and gentle side, but that's not what made him interesting.

Localism is trending today in the realms of food and finance. The institution of the local community newspaper is also popular, but it wasn't blogged into being - it was born long before videos started going viral. Major-metropolitan newspapers may be a slowly dying breed, but community newspapers prove that American journalism is alive, well and living in the rural areas, small towns and suburbs of our land.

Life often becomes so hectic that an individual would like to hide. Walt Disney's movie gave a hint with the lyrics "Everybody needs a laughing place to go, ho, ho." If someone can have a laughing place, he certainly needs a hiding place when no laughter exists. Such a place is possible. All an individual needs is the ability to leave his body while still standing in line or facing a tirade of some sort. Of course, the individual must be able to reenter reality and have some gist of what has occurred there. I have long had a ...

Here in the Chronicle-Independent newsroom, we're kind of shaking our collective head about the news which broke Tuesday about the early-morning heist of a complete automatic teller machine (ATM) from Mid Carolina Credit Union in Lugoff. The thief or thieves apparently used a large, stolen piece of equipment to rip the ATM from its concrete base and load it into or onto some sort of vehicle, almost surely a truck, given an ATM's size and weight.

Every day, in every area of our state, hardworking South Carolina taxpayers are being robbed. They are not held up at gunpoint and their homes are not burglarized. But, they are the victims of theft just the same. Criminals are stealing federal funds and using that money for their personal benefit. They are committing fraud against the food stamp program. In fact, they pocket more than $2 million of your tax dollars every year in South Carolina alone.